Chhalla

Songs come and go-some I really like, will listen to them repeatedly and will, eventually, get bored with them but  Chhalla by Gurdas Mann is a song that I can never get tired of listening to. Its perfect in every  way..

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In honor of NIRBHAYA

This past weekend Punjabis all over the world celebrated Lohri, the quintessential Punjabi festival with bonfires, food, drinks, music and dancing. This is an occasion that celebrates new beginnings. I like to call it the Punjabi New Year and it is marked by the end of the month of "Poh" & beginning of "Magh".  It is considered to be the end of winter season and beginning of spring. People hope that Lohri will bring an end to laziness  and make them more active/productive. This sentiment is echoed in the saying that goes along with throwing "til"(sesame seeds) in the bonfire : "Issar aaye dalidar jaaye,  Dalidar di jarh chulhey paaye". 

This is also a festival that is special for newborns and newly-weds. Couples celebrate the beginning of their journey together and families celebrate the beginning of a new life in their midst. Even though,here I am saying newborns are celebrated, ask any Punjabi and you will realize that most people will celebrate a new birth  only if it is a boy. They say, if you celebrate the birth of a girl, you are basically inviting more girls to be born in your family. Clearly, this is unacceptable to the people who would not think twice about murdering their unborn girl child; in a sense they are just trying to avoid unnecessary killing  by not celebrating Lohri for girls.

This mentality is at the heart of the problems that women face in India, especially Northern India. When her birth is something that is a cause of grief for her family, her upbringing is an expense that they have to endure without any hope of gaining from it, her wedding is a problem so big that they start worrying about it from the moment she is born and the only time she actually gives her family any joy is when she has gone away to her husband's house, how can a woman expect anything better from the rest of the world?
The immediate step that needs to be taken to empower women and to make them feel more secure is to bring about a drastic change in laws that helps deliver justice quickly and efficiently, while being sensitive to the victims and ensuring harsh punishments to the perpetrators. But to bring about real change, girls need to be cherished and loved unconditionally by their parents and family, they need to be respected inside their homes to make them capable of demanding, expecting and  commanding respect from the outside world.Even the popular Lohri song- "Sundar mudariye, tera kaun vichara? Dulla Bhatii waala........." tells the story of a guy who was a savior of girls, someone who treated others' daughters as his own and tried to do good for them.

This desperate need to have boys is making beasts out of us.I hope this Lohri marks the beginning of the end of this sickening mentality that we have developed as a people and the start of a new age where the birth of a girl is also an occasion for celebration and where these girls can hope to live their lives with dignity.
__________________________________________________________________________________
 Here's the full Lohri song (copied from Wikipedia).They also have it translation there :    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lohri.

Sunder mundriye hoye!
Tera kaun vicharaa hoye!
Dullah Bhatti walla hoye!
Dullhe di dhee vyayae hoye!
Ser shakkar payee hoye!
Kudi da laal pathaka hoye!
Kudi da saalu paata hoye!
Salu kaun samete!
Chacha gali dese!
Chache choori kutti! zamidara lutti!
Zamindaar sudhaye!
Bum Bum bhole aaye!
Ek bhola reh gaya!
Sipahee far ke lai gaya!
Sipahee ne mari itt!
Bhaanvey ro te bhaanvey pitt!
Sanoo de de Lohri, te teri jeeve jodi!

You know your plane has landed in Punjab when...

...you see a tractor right in front of it!!



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Natijaey

Ok, so the election results are old news-Mr.Badal is all set to return to his Chief Minister's post on the 14th of this month. This whole election was a record-breaking one- the voting percentage was the highest ever, the ruling party came back to power and we will now have the oldest chief minister in the country. The victory of SAD-BJP over the Congress is a surprise given the past history of the state. Depending on which side your sympathies lie with, you either believe that this spells big trouble for Punjab or you are really happy that your party (and therefore you) and Punjab will be in chardi kala for another 5 years. But one common thought that I have heard from people on both sides is, that in the larger scheme of things, it doesn't really matter which of these two parties is in power as the underlying issues of corruption, nepotism, etc always remain constant. What I find surprising and disappointing is that PPP, the party which held some promise to tackle these issues failed to win even one seat in these elections. Like I had mentioned in one of my previous posts (Votaan), it was very unlikely that they could have made a huge impact on the elections in the first-go itself. I am also aware of the fact that PPP has not proven itself enough as of now and it needs to work its way up from the grassroots level to win the peoples' trust. But, just the fact that there was an alternative to the routine crop of politicians with their open (and hidden) agendas should have been enough to motivate people to at least give them one victory. That ,of course, did not happen and people just voted based on their long held beliefs or loyalties. Punjabis need to give change a chance, we really need to start voting based on issues and past performance and not just for whoever our dadajis voted for.

 Source: http://ibnlive.in.com/elections2012/punjab_intractivemap.html

Anhe Ghorey Da Daan

I hadn't realized that my wish for Jollywood would be granted eni chheti!!! Gurvinder Singh has won the National Award as best director for his movie Anhe Ghorey Da Daan  (http://dff.nic.in/59thNFA2011.htm). Earlier this movie had been featured at the Venice Film Festival making it the first Punjabi film to go to an International Film Festival. The movie is based on a novel ,by the same name, written by Professor Gurdial Singh and deals with the subject of industrial revolution and its effects on the people of a village in Punjab. Kudos to the director, writer, all the crew members and artists for this great achievement! Hope this opens up the door for more meaningful Punjabi cinema.

                                                     http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2085746/

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You can see an interview of the director and producer at the VFF here:

Balley Balley for Jollywood!!

All the raula-rappa over the Oscars, which were awarded last Sunday, got me thinking about the possibility of a Punjabi movie winning this accolade. Every year, since 1957, India has been sending its best film of the year to the Oscars, hoping that it gets nominated and then wins the Best Foreign Film Award. Only three films have made it to nominee status- Mother India, Salaam Bombay and Lagaan and none of them managed to win. Getting nominated is no small accomplishment and hopefully one of these days an Indian film will win too. But the probability of that Indian film being in Punjabi is very less. If you look at the list of films that have been entered by India, you will see films in Hindi, Tamil, Marathi, Bengali, Malyalam, Telugu and Urdu but not even one Punjabi language entry. Over the years there have been some really good Punjabi movies, some of the ones that I remember are Chann Pardesi, Batwara, Ucha Dar Babey Nanak Da, Laung da Lishkara, Sarpanch, Visakhi, Jee Aayan Nu, Mahaul Theek Hai, Shaheed-e -Mohabbat, Des Hoyea Pardes. This is not a complete list and there are other Punjabi movies too that are good but there are not a lot of them and certainly only a few of them have made it to the top among Indian movies, leave alone at an international level.Its not that Punjab lacks talent, in fact, a  lot of the the big name actors, directors and producers in Bollywood can trace their roots back to Punjab. But somehow this connection has not borne out well for the Punjabi movie industry.  A majority of the movies made in Punjabi are amateurish attempts at recreating Hindi films. They don't have a good storyline, acting and humor are both exaggerated and there is an overall lack of substance in the movie. No doubt, recently, the visual and cinematographic quality of Punjabi movies has improved dramatically but these are just superficial changes. The characters lack depth and consistency and beyond looking good, driving expensive cars, having palatial homes/farmhouses and going abroad  they don't have to put in much effort for the role. There are so many great  and powerful stories and characters that define Punjab but somehow our filmmakers are afraid to tackle these subjects. Preferring, instead, to stick to run of the mill love stories,  family dramas or NRIs returning to Punjab themes. I am not saying that these aspects of Punjabi culture should be ignored-these should be portrayed too but there is more to Punjab and Punjabis than just this. We have a rich heritage, a long history full of figures who can be used to tell awesome stories, we have a dynamic culture that is facing new challenges everyday and we have people who are overcoming these challenges. All of these stories should be told and we have the talent, the resources and the expertise to do this, all we need is a vision.      


PS 1: Jollywood is our term for the Punjabi movie industry (partly because of Jalandhar DD and as a nod to the famous jolly nature of Punjabis)




PS 2: Oscar winning director Kathryn Bigelow of " The Hurt Locker" fame is shooting for her next movie in Chandigarh, hope this helps the Punjabi movie industry in some way.


Hollywood crew comes calling
Oscar-winning director in city to shoot film on Osama bin LadenChandigarh, February 29 
There is excitement among students of Punjab Engineering College (PEC) as Oscar-winner and legendary Hollywood director Kathryn Bigelow, who has directed “The Hurt Locker”, is shooting a film on Osama bin Laden on the campus.A Hollywood film on the life of Osama bin Laden being shot in the Sector 15 market, Chandigarh, on Wednesday. Tribune photo: Manoj Mahajan



http://www.tribuneindia.com/2012/20120301/cth1.htm#5




References:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Indian_submissions_for_the_Academy_Award_for_Best_Foreign_Language_Film

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cinema_of_Punjab


http://www.tribuneindia.com

Paani Punjab Da

Sirhind Canal
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sirhind_Canal